by Niall Gooch, UnHerd
There are some news stories that, if they came from the pen of a Right-wing satirist, would be considered a bit too on the nose. The revelation that on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Sarah Mullally, the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, gave an award for interfaith work to an Muslim cleric, only to withdraw the award a week later after the cleric in question was found to have praised Osama bin Laden, is firmly in that category.
The accompanying photo, showing a somewhat uncomfortable-looking Mullally handing over the certificate next to Ashrafi’s wife, who is wearing a niqab, is unavoidably redolent of a kind of cringing liberalism. There is a whiff of hypocrisy in the air, given Mullally’s professed commitment to “combatting misogyny”.
Interfaith dialogue and cooperation are a necessity in a religiously diverse country such as modern Britain. That is especially the case when it comes to Christianity and Islam — by far the two most widely practised religions in the UK. St Paul himself told Christians: “If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men.”
Problems start to arise when the dialogue is a one-way street, when the admirable instinct to maintain civil peace and an atmosphere of tolerant pluralism mutates — on the Christian side, at least — into a habit of self-abnegation. We see this, for example, in the growing trend for churches and cathedrals to host iftar ceremonies during Ramadan. This is defended as simple neighbourliness, but the iftar is not merely a shared meal or an opportunity for community conviviality. It is a specifically religious ceremony.